Connecticut Town Holds Drive To Collect, Destroy Violent Games

...and the witch hunt formally begins.

A town about 30 miles outside of Newtown is holding a drive for people to bring their violent video games in and receive a $25 voucher good towards some other form of entertainment. The games that are collected will be broken and then incinerated by town employees.

Personally, this...is...a...fucking...joke. People want to find a scapegoat; they want to hunt for witches to burn. I get that. Everyone wants to avoid the real problems, so they need to find something else to blame.

However, if this town...and the country in general...took nearly as much time to work with mental health organizations, to pay attention to those in their communities who may be troubled, they might find that it's a much more solid solution than trying to find justification in "burning books".

Meanwhile, I don't see any of the following being broken and incinerated, despite containing violence as well:

• The Holy Bible
• The Lion King
• Looney Tunes
• The Passion of The Christ
• Tiny Toon Adventures
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• Voltron
• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
• The Lord of the Rings

What do you think? Is this stupid or is there a solid reasoning? Do you believe that violence in media creates violence in real life?

Source: http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/2/3828182/connecticut-town-holds-drive-to-collect-and-destroy-violent-video

Stupid is as stupid does.

There is no solid reasoning at all, destruction breeds destruction. This is a hateful, destructive act that will cause parents to trade their childrens games in thus angering the children themselves and coming full circle with it all being part of the problem. I am from the UK and I cant pretend I get gun laws and various other things about American government but this is completely fucking nonsensical to me.

Wow, now I know where to take all those copies of Madden 03.

This just makes me sad. Not that they're burning or destroying games, but the principle behind it is what's depressing me.

It's a truly sad state of affairs when this kind of behaviour is encouraged in today's society.

Once again, a knee-jerk reaction to a non-existent problem. When will people realize what the real problem is?

What the fuck has this country become?

When meaningful positive change is too inconvenient, blame something else and pretend you helped.

What a lack of perspective not to think, 'Didn't people do this with books for a large portion of human history and are now looked back on as monsters? Didn't people do this with rap music 20 years ago and aren't they looked back on as short-sighted and impotent?'

How can people lack such awareness to not see themselves in the wrong when their stance is: 'Destroy the things I don't like.'

Silicon knights brings all their copies of Too Human, company is saved!

Shame about the games

I'm holding out hope that as the older generation dies and we have more people who are used to video games and grew up with them, less of this shit will happen.

So in the future

- Games will not be unfairly attacked

- Gay marriage will be legal

Fingers crossed

@UlquioKani said:

Shame about the games

I'm holding out hope that as the older generation dies and we have more people who are used to video games and grew up with them, less of this shit will happen.

So in the future

- Games will not be unfairly attacked

- Gay marriage will be legal

Fingers crossed

We can only hope.

So is this a news story from the 1600's? It reads like it is.

It really is dumb. But if you are near there, I suggest you buy a bargain bin M-rated game for like $5 then hand it in to the dummies doing this. Easy $20 profit.

receive a $25 voucher

Really? So I could potentially go to Gamestop and buy every M-rated game there that's less than $20 (which is a whole lot, by the way) and bring them all up there and make one hell of a profit, most of which will probably go toward buying new violent games?

On a more serious note, this is pretty fucking atrocious but stupid people have always existed and will always exist. This is like a beacon, letting all of us who have more than two thought processes per day know who and where to stay away from.

Those melted games sure are going to fix a lot of things. Noble cause!

Congratulations, stupid little town, on epitomizing the idiotic majority of the American populace by preferring unsubstantiated knee-jerk reactions to actual science and reason!

Reminds me of book burning from the past. Funny how some things don't really change. At least this is just one town though.

So book burnings basically. God, people are stupid.

Thank god there was no violence in the world before video games.

So, you say they are incinerated by city employees.....does that mean the vouchers are funded with public money? If I lived in Connecticut, I would have field day with that one.

Pretty much the most retarded thing in the world. Like on every level. Why not burn guns? Guns actually hurt people. Video games are just entertainment, plus there is no correlation between video games and violence. Besides, there has always been violence, before video games existed. Like every event in the world... Pretty fucking dumb.

Why do people get upset about stuff like this? People are coping with a terrible tragedy that happens mere miles from them, and people are getting worked up about how they choose to cope? Fuck that. Shame on you.

@jakob187 said:

People want to find a scapegoat; they want to hunt for witches to burn. I get that. Everyone wants to avoid the real problems, so they need to find something else to blame.

See if you're burning books in like the 1800's that's a big deal... because once that information's burned up it's BURNED UP! That's it- it's gone!
 
If you destroy videogame discs though, they still exist digitally on Steam, other stores, on people's hard drives, all over the place. They're printing more copies of Max Payne 3 right now. You might as well be downloading videos from Youtube and then deleting them. This is some fucking stone-age idiocy.

Destroying media in a group, organized setting has gone well before right?

@kmdrkul said:

Why do people get upset about stuff like this? People are coping with a terrible tragedy that happens mere miles from them, and people are getting worked up about how they choose to cope? Fuck that. Shame on you.

@jakob187 said:

People want to find a scapegoat; they want to hunt for witches to burn. I get that. Everyone wants to avoid the real problems, so they need to find something else to blame.

What? People can get out of hand responding to tragedy. It's so unfortunate what happened but that doesn't make anything beyond criticism.

I honestly thought in this day and age we were past this kind of idiocy in the west, but I guess not. Perhaps even more worrying to me than the fact these people are attacking video games though is that every scapegoat distracts from the hunt for and attack on the real causes of tragedies like what happened at Sandy Hook. Every person involved in this kind of mindless attacking of dummy targets shares responsibility for part of the larger societal problem in the U.S. of gun violence. The number of people in America who've adopted this kind of angry, ignorant mindset is scary.

@kmdrkul said:

Why do people get upset about stuff like this? People are coping with a terrible tragedy that happens mere miles from them, and people are getting worked up about how they choose to cope? Fuck that. Shame on you.

@jakob187 said:

People want to find a scapegoat; they want to hunt for witches to burn. I get that. Everyone wants to avoid the real problems, so they need to find something else to blame.

when your method of coping is to essentially spread a message of censorship you've crossed a pretty big line. It's not about them "coping" with a tragedy anymore, it's about them pushing an agenda that actively stifles artists and tries to chain them in their expression.

The demonstrators or protesters or whatever they want to be called, they can say this demonstration is about community or about interacting with your kids all you want, but that doesn't make it true. Their actions speak much louder than any words they've uttered to defend this oppressive bullshit.

@Oldirtybearon said:

@kmdrkul said:

Why do people get upset about stuff like this? People are coping with a terrible tragedy that happens mere miles from them, and people are getting worked up about how they choose to cope? Fuck that. Shame on you.

@jakob187 said:

People want to find a scapegoat; they want to hunt for witches to burn. I get that. Everyone wants to avoid the real problems, so they need to find something else to blame.

when your method of coping is to essentially spread a message of censorship you've crossed a pretty big line. It's not about them "coping" with a tragedy anymore, it's about them pushing an agenda that actively stifles artists and tries to chain them in their expression.

The demonstrators or protesters or whatever they want to be called, they can say this demonstration is about community or about interacting with your kids all you want, but that doesn't make it true. Their actions speak much louder than any words they've uttered to defend this oppressive bullshit.

Amen. Some of the worst oppressions in history have come out of tragedy.

They aren't stealing my games in order to burn them are they? No? Oh, then I don't really care.

If they, as a community, believe it will help avoid unnecessary violence within their community, then it's no one's place to judge what they do with their games or anything they own. They aren't forcing people to burn anything, they're even offering compensation. I don't see cause to get all up in arms because a group in a town has said "We don't want glorification of violence in our community." If they were holding people at gunpoint, demanding their violent media to contribute to a modern Bonfire of the Vanities, maybe there'd be something worth getting worked up about.

This is a little fucked up but if you have any shit games that you need to get rid off...

I'm gonna take in Bomberman and spend my $25 dollar voucher on Pulp Fiction and Audition.

Overlooking the entire issue, I feel sick that many are opting out to burn violent media by destroying. Ironic when you think about it.

We must get rid of violent media by violently destroying it!....GG....Why not recycle it? Just a thought....

I suggest people read the article. It's not nearly so alarmist as this thread makes it out to be.

The foreman merely suggests parents take the time to examine the media--yes, all forms, not just video games--their children consume, judge for themselves, and choose or not to turn them in. If they choose, the disc is shredded and they receive a single $25 voucher specifically donated by a Greater Southington Chamber of Commerce member.

"The group's action is not intended to be construed as statement declaring that violent video games were the cause of the shocking violence in Newtown on December 14th," according to a statement from the organization. "Rather, SouthingtonSOS is saying is that there is ample evidence that violent video games, along with violent media of all kinds, including TV and Movies portraying story after story showing a continuous stream of violence and killing, has contributed to increasing aggressiveness, fear, anxiety and is desensitizing our children to acts of violence including bullying. Social and political commentators, as well as elected officials including the president, are attributing violent crime to many factors including inadequate gun control laws, a culture of violence and a recreational culture of violence."

People literally ran from the theater when first seeing Hitchcock's Psyco. Nobody did so when first watching Saw. Society has lost a good deal of its sensitivity to violence, gore, and language. That's mostly due to the hand-off of motion picture content monitoring from the Motion Picture Production Code to the MPAA rating system. A foreign body could no longer enforce "moral quality" of everyone's media.

I don't think anyone should have the right to censor the media of another. But at some point the bar of decency is lowered so far that one should be ashamed. Yet no one is. At some point you would imagine that "common" dignity would rule one's sense of authority over one's entertainment. But that never happens.

And, no, we don't have to all be highbrow all of the time. We don't all need to be able to appreciate Shelly and The Death of a Salesman. But, conversely, do we really need to keep chasing blood and sex into the deep jungle?

A little thought is necessary. A blind and reflexive defense of your pass-time is as foolish as the blind and reflexive defamation.

That is hilarious.

@NoobSauceG7 said:

Pretty much the most retarded thing in the world. Like on every level. Why not burn guns? Guns actually hurt people. Video games are just entertainment, plus there is no correlation between video games and violence. Besides, there has always been violence, before video games existed. Like every event in the world... Pretty fucking dumb.

Yeah but I wouldn't trust these people to unload the guns first which would just lead to those guns killing more people... in an ironic way I suppose.

sounds like it would be pretty easy to scam these fools.

and then use the extra money to buy more violent videogames.

Sounds fucking mad. It must be strange living in the 1800s.

@Kidavenger said:

Silicon knights brings all their copies of Too Human, company is saved!

lmao

i can VAGUELY understand suggesting that video games may be taking up a little too much of kid's lives and maybe offering suggestions on how to pull them away from the TV for a couple hours a day, but this is flat out nonsensical and frankly disturbing. people want to feel better by attacking an obvious target, i can understand that, but if they think about it rationally there's obvious steps that can be taken in the ream of mental health and gun control that would also be easily constructive as a whole.

I really want to crawl up to them, splint on leg, arm bleeding, holding a copy of Mass Effect, and whisper "Burn it... it's the only way...". When they ask what happened, I'll tell them that the violence and sex in the game managed to crawl out of the TV, become sentient beings, and beat me half to death with my own controller.

Oh for god's sakes. :(

@SpiderCabaret said:

If they, as a community, believe it will help avoid unnecessary violence within their community, then it's no one's place to judge what they do with their games or anything they own. They aren't forcing people to burn anything, they're even offering compensation. I don't see cause to get all up in arms because a group in a town has said "We don't want glorification of violence in our community." If they were holding people at gunpoint, demanding their violent media to contribute to a modern Bonfire of the Vanities, maybe there'd be something worth getting worked up about.

yeah this is basically how I see it too.

you are getting compensated after all, so who the fuck cares? go turn in that copy of duke nukem forever you have and get way more than you'd get by trading it into gamestop.

@mlarrabee said:

do we really need to keep chasing blood and sex into the deep jungle?

Yes, if that's what people want. I have no problem with people not wanting to be exposed to such things, or for their children to be exposed to such things, but to go to the level of censorship is wrong. I understand that the organisers of this aren't straight up saying that video games should be censored, at least in public, but their actions are emblematic of that notion. If people want to explore the darker side of human nature then let them. It shouldn't be demonised.

That's just completely ridiculous.

I understand that people are still freaked out on what happened at Sandy Hook, but I can't believe that they're trying to destroy Video games just because they have violent content in them.

@mlarrabee: are there actually any correlations between the violence in videogames and real-world violence? does it matter how desensitized we become to violence in entertainment if there isn't actually any tenable link to it and the real thing? i'm probably speaking of ignorance but is there any actually documented study that links violence in games, or any media, to encouraging real-life violence? maybe it's a factor but upbringing, mental health, and the easy availability of lethal weapons would contribute too, no? it's obviously more complicated than MEDIA IS VIOLENT, SO WE'RE INSENSITIVE TO IT.

@Roger778: they are literally offering people money if they will turn the video games in, they are not going door to door and demanding people hand over their violent video games.

Why are they burning them? Isn't it enough to just throw them away?

Words fail me

I love how this is sensationalist, apparently, but all this talk of WELL VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT IN ANY WAY CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM and WITCH HUNT apparently isn't? somebody was calling this oppression, which really made me laugh.

this is not a local law, people, this is an optional thing. and again, I bet you have shit like haze and DNF I bet you'd love to give away for 25 bucks.

In the words of Crow T Robot, "Sounds like a really crappy plan, but OK!"

One again, I agree with the message that parents could talk to and regulate what their kids watch, but burning video games is a horrible stupid way to send this message.

I agree that maybe the parents should see what they're children are playing but offering money for the games and then burning them? I know I wouldn't let my kids (If I had any) play any CoD or possibly Halo until I would say ~15. I know what are in those games and I would say its not all that bad. But the amount of kids that are